Crime Statistics
In 2005, 24% of the incidents of violent crime, a weapon was present - not necessarily a firearm.

Weapons and violent crime
Weapons and violent crime Between 1993 and 2001, about 26% (or an annual average of 2.3 million) of the estimated 8.9 million violent crimes in the United States were committed by offenders armed with guns, knives, or objects used as weapons. Of all violent crimes,

10% firearm violence accounted
6% were committed with a knife or other sharp object such as scissors, ice pick, or broken bottle;
4% with blunt objects such as a brick, bat, or bottle; and
5% were committed with unspecified/ "other" objects used as weapons.

Assault Weapons
Banning so called assault weapons makes little sense. Assault weapons by definition are weapons with selective fire rates including fully automatic fire - machine guns. Machine guns were banned in the US in 1934. Military type arms sold in the US today are semi-automatic only, meaning you get one shot for each trigger pull. These weapons barely register in homicide statistics at all. They look good in the arms of politicians though. In 2005, 75% of the 10,100 homicides committed using firearms in the United States were committed using handguns, compared to 4% with rifles, 5% with shotguns, and the rest with a type of firearm not specified. Assault weapons are so rarely used they don't qualify for a separate category.
[American Firearms Institute - editor, 2007-10-07, also 2005 statistics from Cook, Philip J., Jens Ludwig (2000). "Chapter 2", Gun Violence: The Real Costs. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513793-0]

Exposure to Crime
In Britain based on year 2000 statistics supplied by UK Home Office the following percentages of the population of these countries were exposed to crime. Among the countries compared the USA has the lowest number of incidents. The UK and Australia do not allow ownership of handguns. About 3% of the Germany population own firearms.
The lowest rate - for the year 200 period in the USA there were 11,605,751 incidents of reported crime based on a population of 300,000,000 (06) - 3.87% of the population was exposed to crime
Australia which does not allow ownership of handguns had a reported crime rate of 1,431,929 based on a population of 20,000,000 - 7.16% of the population was exposed to crime.
Germany with a population of 82 million (05) has a reported 6.264,723 crimes or 7.64% of the population was exposed to crime.
In Britain there were 5,170,843 incidents of reported crime to the police based on a population of 60, 587,000 (06) - 8.5% of the population was exposed to crime.
Highest rate - New Zealand with a population of 4,000,000 (06) had a reported crime with 427,230 incidents - 10.68% of the population was exposed to crime.

Editor's note: When comparing European and US violent death from firearm statistics, Europeans are apt to describe the US a barbaric with regard to firearm ownership and mis-use. Looking over the past 90 years of European history these are interesting terms from a continent that brought the world 83 million violent deaths in two world wars including civilians.

Crime and firearms

The number of handguns used in crime (approximately 7,500 per year) is very small compared to the approximately 70 million handguns in the United States (i.e., 0.011%) [Committee on Law and Justice (2004). "Chapter 4", Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review. National Academy of Science. ]

People with a criminal record are more likely to die as homicide victims.
Does Gun Prohibition Work?
Washington D.C. enacted a virtual ban on handguns in 1976. Between 1976 and 1991, Washington D.C.'s homicide rate rose 200%, while the U.S. rate rose 12%.

According to Crime in the United States 2004, second to firearms, knives and cutting instruments were the weapons most frequently used by persons committing homicides in the United States. Offenders employed knives to kill members of the general public more than they used rifles and shotguns combined.

During 2003 and 2004, approximately 117,973 law enforcement personnel in the United States were feloniously assaulted…Many of the offenders stated that their motivation for assaulting an officer was to avoid going to jail.

The rates of firearm violence for blacks and Hispanics fell relatively more than the rate for whites, 1993-2001. In 1993 blacks and Hispanics were victims of firearm violence at a rate of 13 firearm crimes per 1,000 persons, about 3 times the rate for whites. By 2001 the rate for blacks had fallen to about 4 per 1,000, roughly 2.5 times that for whites. In 2001 Hispanics experienced firearm violence at a rate per 1,000 similar to those for both blacks and whites.

From 1993 to 2001, rates of violence involving firearms declined among all age groups. The decline was greatest among the youngest victims: by 2001, persons age 12-14 had experienced a 97% decrease in the rate of firearm violence, and those age 15-17, a 77% decrease.

Our researchers at AFI provide extensive and ongoing research into the cause and effects of gun ownership and violence. Why? To counter the heavy slant in the media against gun-owners and gun ownership.

One common thread throughout all of our investigation can be found early in the literature being analyzed and that that is the bias of the researcher who compiled the numbers, who believe it or not, are usually anti-gun. Once that has been determined, you realize, the numbers presented are statistically and practically useless because of their inherent skew.

habsheaven

08-01-2012, 07:56 AM

Another wasted post with cherry-picked stats. An editor's note bolded to bring attention to a comparison of every day gun deaths to deaths that occurred in 2 world wars. That makes sense, now doesn't it. Where is the comparison of gun deaths in America compared to gun deaths in the rest of the world? The stats are out there, conveniently this article deems them irrelevant.